The deepest depression I’ve experienced in a number of years
foreshadowed my Birthday. There was no detectable reason to be any more
depressed than usual. It could have been about a number of things but I knew
that it wasn’t. Although I could feel depressed about PQ’s illness, my disappointment
with myself for not doing more with my 72 years, our arrival at this time in
our lives without resources to have our fix of Arizona, take a vacation or even get the
windshield on the car fixed, it wasn’t about any of these things. It went much
deeper and didn’t feel truly personal. All of a sudden, the cloudy veil was removed from all the things I know are not right but nevertheless have to live with
from the current state of world affairs, the human mistreatment of the earth and
its creatures, and not least the way we humans mistreat each other. Doom and gloom seemed to be setting in for a
long stay, and yet I recognize from past experience that moods don’t last (at least not
for Gemini’s with Cancer rising) and that something important was trying to
move into consciousness while something else was trying to divert it. There was
an inner war going on and all I could do was observe. It even dimmed my
eyesight and slowed my reactions. Heavy grey smog had descended on the world.
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| Hummingbird Moth, taken with the dead iPhone |
There was a trickster element to this experience as well.
The worse I felt, the more things went wrong, as if the gods teasing me. The climax was the day two checks
bounced when my SS check came in three days late and my iPhone died. I replaced
the iPhone but it was three months beyond its insurance expiration date. The Verizon Store didn’t have any iPhone 4’s
so I had to upgrade to the new 5s. For a couple of hours and several hundred
dollars more on the groaning credit card, I felt as if nothing would ever be good
again. Then my mood unexpectadly shifted sideways. At first, I thought it was
denial because the downward speed of our financial situation had just picked up
considerably and it would be easy to move into an “everything is going to hell
anyway, why not enjoy riding out the storm till our boat capsizes and we all drown,”
state of mind. However, I saw a dim light coming up on the other side of my
mountain of woes. It shown a light on something long hidden that was completely
outside my conscious experience and conditioned expectations.
Certainly, I could blame misfortune on the planets. There
are some challenging transits at this time, but the planets only tell us about
certain energies that are more intense than other energies and in what part of
our life they may apply pressure. Would
it change the life of a mouse, or a stone? Maybe, but changes are always
possible. If you have a wall of bricks that are carelessly stacked, it will go
down first if an earthquake hits. Challenging transits tend to expose the
weak places in our psychic, social and even physical structure.
When PQ came back from errands this morning he told me that
one of our headlights had burned out. Thus, another expense arises, although this
time it’s a moderate one. Everything is relative. I didn’t get more depressed with
this one. Now, I’m beginning to catch on that there is a message. I can’t put my finger on the exact point that
begs insight but there is something very important hidden in this seeming chain
of crisis. I think this one goes very deep and into one of my oldest deepest layers. It seems to be time to rebuild starting with the foundation.
Circumstantially, cast away to the outer edges of family,
school, church and later the conventional adult world of nine to five, I
eventually identified myself as an outcast. At fifteen, I quit school in a
state of nervous collapse and found myself falling into an endless hole of impenetrable
blackness. To borrow a quote from Charles Dickens, “It was the best of times;
it was the worst of times.” The best part was discovering an entirely new
empowering world of amazing explosive insights bursting through the heavy darkness
like a fabulous display of creative pyrotechnics. On the other side was a lonely colorless cramped
world of drudge and grunge, a continuous cloudy day. There was a wise invisible
guide who showed me the places I needed to go and books I needed to read, guided me to study art history,
anthropology, theology, psychology, classical music, history, sacred geometry, and
much more, all topics I had never heard of just a year or two earlier. My
skills of observation suddenly bloomed. Although my heroes were eclectic, it
began with the discovery of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu. After that, I followed a
very strange path for a teenage girl in the late 50’s one strewn with sharp but
gorgeous jewels, and one I took alone.
While one side of my life was heady, the other side was the barefoot
gardener and a burgeoning cook exploring the exotic world of French cuisine, of
herbs and wine. If I made a soup, I needed only to run out to our large garden
with mud squishing between my bare toes to take carrots, onions, green beans
or peas. My poor parents must have been terrified and nonplussed. The daughter
they had known was gone. We lived in the same house on different schedules. I
read, painted and brooded deep into the night long after they were asleep and
woke up long after they’d gone to work. During the first years I went barefoot
winter and summer. I wore one pair of jeans until they began to fall apart. I
glued them together and covered the holes with duct tape.
Part of being an outcast and yet free to think and feel as
spirit lead me was staying away from conventional routes. To make up for lack
of flesh and blood teachers, I followed the discipline learned from my favorite
authors and developed a strong critical aptitude. Yet, the disadvantage of being an recluse
was that I did not know how to navigate
that world from which I’d escaped. When I finally ventured out to the job market,
I learned how to pretend I knew what I was doing until I did, but always felt
like a fake in a world I didn’t fit and
dependent on a job that I sometimes didn’t approve of.
Believing that monetary success requires a life enslaved to
golden chains, or in my case silver-plated plastic chains was a constant
downer. I literally felt like a slave or indentured servant. Now it’s emerging
that I still live with the unconscious assumption that being an outcast automatically
means living on the outer edge in seclusion and poverty. I was often a helpful alien
willing to do what was needed while never officially joining the system or benefiting from its perks.
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| Squeaky thinks he's the new king. |
While writing the previous paragraph,I'm reminded of my
relationship with men and cats. Cats are
marginal members of our civilized human world with two paws in and the other
two out. I often have dreams about rescuing a cat lost and terrified in some
urban setting. I have to protect it from its instinctive wild reaction to an
alien system. As for men, I have a history of being with someone who is far
from conventional but who handles himself with chutzpa. This is a person who
gets away with what I don’t believe I can get away with. Also, my men generally like to live somewhat
indulgently. Given a choice, they opt for the top brand and the gourmet menu.
The big picture is that I don’t have confidence in my right
to be as I am. My nerve fails when confronting that big world that seems so
unforgiving and menacing. And that
friends, is the big insight. It could be that when I truly honor my right to participate
in human society the money situation will reflect the change. It’s time to be reborn, or more likely simply believe
that I really was born in this world.
To be continued. This is just the beginning.
